I wanted to add, I was running through kernel re-compile and it seemed that after copying the configuration file you had onto .config, the
make oldconfig
command seemed to be pulling the .config from another location and over writing it. A diff between the original config file you have and the .config shows that they are pretty different after the build, which shouldn't happen.
I believe the make oldconfig step should be removed , from the procedure.
You see it in many descriptions on how to build a kernel, but then I have also seen it not used.
=== One more thing... linux-4.8.17-patched.tar.txz
What are the patches ? Do you have a patch script?
Tony